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Friday, December 26, 2025
Justice Department Challenges Illinois Laws It Says Endanger Federal Agents
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, challenging what the federal government calls an unconstitutional attempt to regulate federal law enforcement officers through the so-called “Illinois Bivens Act” and “Court Access, Safety, and Participation Act.”
The federal government says that the laws threaten the safety of federal officers who have faced an unprecedented wave of harassment, doxxing, and even violence. Threatening officers with ruinous liability and even punitive damages for executing federal law and for simply protecting their identities and their families also chills the enforcement of federal law and compromises sensitive law enforcement operations. The danger is acute.
“The Department of Justice will steadfastly protect law enforcement from unconstitutional state laws like Illinois’ that threaten massive punitive liability and compromise the safety of our officers,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
Pritzker has opposed the federal government enforcing immigration laws in Northern Illinois.
“Unfortunately, Illinois politicians prefer to attack law enforcement with lawsuits and punitive damages rather than support ICE’s Criminal Alien Program, which prioritizes the safe removal of dangerous criminal aliens like murderers, child rapists, and other serious offenders,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft for the Southern District of Illinois. “Courthouse arrests are only necessary in the first place because Illinois refuses to honor federal detainers at the jails and prisons, instead preferring to release criminals back into our communities.”
Attorney General Bondi instructed the Department’s Civil Division to identify state and local laws, policies, and practices that facilitate violations of federal laws or impede lawful federal operations. This lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits brought by the Civil Division targeting illegal policies designed to thwart federal law enforcement across the country, including in New York, New Jersey, and Los Angeles, California.
John Brennan’s Lawfare Lawyers Are Revealing More Than They Intend
As we noted yesterday, lawyers representing former CIA Director John Brennan are sending proactive letters to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida {SEE HERE}. However, some of the information included in the letters intended to be exculpatory is actually damning against their defense position.
You have to go deep in the weeds to see it, but if you understand the details of the events, the information being revealed by Brennan’s lawyers is the opposite of helpful to his case. As an example, there is a citation included in a footnote of the December 22, 2025, [fn #20 page 6] letter that links to a March 31, 2022, letter sent to John Durham.
Here’s page 6 of the 2025 letter.
Compare the underlined section to the 2022 letter sent to John Durham.
In 2025, Brennan is telling the Florida court the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conclusion was confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a “very serious review.” However, in 2022 Brennan told John Durham that Robert Mueller never interviewed him or offered an assessment of the ICA; Mueller just regurgitated it.
So, which is it?
These contradictions are throughout both of the letters when you compare them side-by-side. In 2022, former CIA Director John Brennan was trying to escape the Durham review. In 2025, Brennan is trying to escape a grand jury review.
[We are aware that the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, has access to the CTH public library of research into all of these historic events.]
There are other citations in the 2022 letter that are certainly worth reviewing, because the legally binding statements made by John Brennan at the time have been shown to be false in 2025.
Another of the claims, in the 2022 letter to John Durham, highlights why it was critical for the CIA to assist in the capture and arrest of Julian Assange in 2019.
The lawyers representing John Brennan in the above 2022 letter apparently did not know the DNC emails were provably not hacked by Russia, unless they are claiming that Seth Rich (DNC staff) and Julian Assange (Wikileaks) were working for the Russian government.
John Brennan asserts a “definitive determination” that Russia was involved in the theft of the DNC emails, and across the intelligence community that determination was “unanimous.” That assertion, by Brennan, underpinning the “Russian interference narrative”, opens up the entire DNC email issue for Jason Quiñones to explore.
The DNC hired Crowdstrike to investigate the leak/hack; the James Comey FBI never looked at the DNC servers; and Crowdstrike told the Senate there was no evidence of a hack or outside intrusion. Perhaps Quiñones will finally highlight these contradictions and get to the bottom of it? Because, after all, this is part of Brennan’s ICA defense.
What Brennan did not realize we would discover when he wrote the letter in 2022:
In December of 2016, President Obama turned to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan with a request to change the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and blame the Russians for election interference in the prior presidential election. Brennan gave the task of assembling the fraudulent intel to a CIA analyst named Julia Gurganus.
Subsequently, inside the CIA the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the Directorate of Analysis began working on a pretext that would create the impression for the misleading Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), as demanded by Obama, Clapper and Brennan – ultimately constructed by Julia Gurganus.
Inside the National Intelligence Council, one of the key figures who helped create the ICA fabrication was a CIA analyst named Eric Ciaramella.
You might remember the name Eric Ciaramella from the 2019 impeachment effort against President Trump. However, in 2016/2017 Eric Ciaramella was a CIA deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, at the time the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment was created.
Oh look, there’s another trail for U.S Attorney Jason Quiñones to follow.
What would Julia Gurganus and Eric Ciaramella have to say about putting the ICA together?
Merry Christmas!
U.S Attorney Jason Quiñones (center)
Woke Minneapolis Mayor Appears to 'Wishcast' Death and Injury to ICE Amid 'Operation Metro Surge'
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) almost lost his job to a Democrat Socialist, so he needs to prove to the Somali population that he is down with the cause and will protect Somalis from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids being conducted through "Operation Metro Surge."
In early December, ICE officials announced they had arrested child sex offenders, domestic abusers, and violent gang members just a few days into Operation Metro Surge.
“Sanctuary policies and politicians like Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey allowed these pedophiles, domestic terrorists, and gang members to roam the streets and terrorize Americans,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “ICE law enforcement are risking their lives to protect Minnesotans while their own elected officials sit by and do nothing. No matter when and where, ICE will find, arrest, and deport ALL criminal illegal aliens.”
Just as with Operation Midway Blitz in Illinois, the supposed residents of the city are marching in protest and doing their utmost to thwart the work ICE is attempting to do. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), Frey, and the police chief have made it known that ICE is not welcome in Minnesota. The police had the gall to insist residents call 9-1-1 if an ICE agent attempted to apprehend them or come to their home.
These poor excuses for leadership have done everything short of kissing the hindparts of Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05) in order to prove their allegiance to Somalis and their resistance to the Trump agenda.
Frey went on MS NOW to declare this.
WATCH:
Then there is this embarrassing display, similar to 2020, where Frey kneeled and cried in front of George Floyd's golden casket. In the clip below, Frey tries to speak Somali in order to show he is one of them.
But at a press conference this week, Frey appeared to cross a line in his blind allegiance. He said,
I am increasingly concerned because of the chaos that is being caused by these ICE agents that somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed. Somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed.
Why did he choose to say this twice? And who does he refer to when he says, "somebody"? The Minneapolis activists? ICE agents? This is strangely cryptic, and in the current atmosphere could well be taken as a veiled threat. One wonders.
Frey continued his rant, claiming that the entire situation is becoming explosive.
And whether that is an ICE agent or a community member, we all know the tinder box that could explode because of it. We all know that the federal government is looking for reasons to deploy more and more people to Minneapolis and blue cities around the country. We all know that we cannot afford to lose a single Minneapolis resident because they showed up and decided to protect their neighbors. Because they showed up and decided to express their constitutional right to free speech.
WATCH:
Was this a cautionary warning, or a dog whistle? Frey's statement not only cemented the left's false narrative about Trump's immigration enforcement agenda, but it also supplied kindling for that tinder box he claims that his city currently is. The question is, who plans to light the match?
As we close out the year, with mass casualty incidents on the wind, it might be wise to keep an eye on Minneapolis.
Don't Pop the Champagne Just Yet - Bush Admin Alum Warns JB Pritzker Over SCOTUS Nat'l Guard Decision
As RedState reported on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to issue a stay on a lower court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Illinois. RedState further reported that Justice Samuel Alito issued a blistering dissent, essentially saying that the courts were hindering the Trump administration from protecting federal officers.
As Bob Hoge wrote:
As we reported on Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to stay a lower court order blocking the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops in Illinois. Many conservatives were outraged, complaining that since the advent of President Trump 2.0, judges at all levels have been doing everything in their power to kneecap his agenda. The Supreme Court has issued some favorable decisions along the way — but not this time.
One person who was not amused was a Supreme Court justice himself: Justice Samuel Alito, and his dissent on the case doesn’t mince words about his displeasure with what he sees as "unwise" and "imprudent" determinations made by the 6-3 majority. In addition, Alito — not one known to hold back on his opinions — thought it improperly took power from the executive branch:
The majority also did not give enough deference to Trump after the president found that agitators were hindering immigration officers and other federal personnel from doing their jobs in Chicago and that the National Guard needed to step in to help.
"Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted," Alito wrote.
Of course, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker took a victory lap anyway:
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker applauded the court’s decision in a statement, saying, “I am glad the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump did not have the authority to deploy the federalized guard in Illinois. This is an important step in curbing the Trump Administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism."
As Joe Cunningham explained, Pritzker may have worn himself out unnecessarily because SCOTUS has not rendered the final ruling on this.
The Court emphasized that it was not issuing a final decision on whether or not the president has the authority to deploy the National Guard. It focuses on the emergency request before the Court while side-stepping the overall issue, which is not out of line with other recent rulings.
The Court made clear in its decision that it is not addressing the underlying constitutional questions, nor is it making a determination as to whether or not Trump's orders were lawful. It also, notably, does not prevent future deployments.
With that in mind, John Yoo, attorney and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under the George W. Bush administration, had a possibly different interpretation of this SCOTUS decision. Yoo appeared on Fox News' America Reports and surmised that the decision may not mean what Pritzker and others think it means.
YOO: But the statute says, the President has to be unable to enforce the law with regular forces. What does regular forces mean? We don't know, the Supreme Court has never decided this question before yesterday. The Supreme Court now says, regular forces means you have to try with the regular armed forces first before you bring out the National Guard.
Oops. Yoo even set out a precedent from a past president on how this could play out.
So, the unintended consequence here might be that the president is going to have to call the 82nd Airborne, or the Marines, or the 101st Airborne Division as for example President Eisenhower did after Brown v. Board of Education in the South to enforce desegregation. President Trump might have to do that first in order to protect those federal buildings, those ICE agents. And then if they fail, he can then call out the National Guard.
WATCH:
As Cunningham noted above, the SCOTUS decision is not on the merits, so this is not the final word on the issue, particularly in light of Alito's dissent noted above, the dissent of Justice Neil Gorsuch, and the concurring opinion of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In fact, Yoo thinks SCOTUS could be giving President Trump an opening.
YOO: Second, and I think, more worrisome, the Supreme Court is essentially inviting President Trump to send regular armed troops and deploy those to Chicago and Los Angeles before he can send the National Guard. I think a governor would rather have National Guard troops than the 82nd Airborne and the Marine Corps patrolling the streets of Chicago.
One could naturally come to that conclusion, but JB Pritzker only cares about what will polish his presidential bona fides. Just as he is more than willing to see unrest and innocents die from the violence in Chicago and the ICE protests, he could be salivating at the mouth to see Trump direct more U.S. military to roll into the state just to give credence to his blather about "abuse of power" and "authoritarianism."
While Trump may be within his rights as head of the executive branch, he also doesn't need to give a cretin like Pritzker any more fodder for his propaganda crusades or his probable 2028 presidential campaign.
Trump Announces Deadly Strike vs. 'ISIS Terrorist Scum' in Nigeria
President Donald Trump announced, in a post spreading Christmas Day greetings on Thursday, that the United States military has made good on his prior threats to wipe out the terrorists in the northwestern part of Nigeria who were eradicating Christians in the African nation.
As RedState previous wrote, Pres. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth strongly condemned the wholesale slaughter of Christians, something Hegseth pressed in meetings with the Nigerian government in Nov. On Nov. 1, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post:
If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!
Rapper Nikki Minaj helped make the issue global, when she thanked the Trump administration on behalf of her fellow Christians for taking actions to end the heinous mass killings by ISIS. She also recently appeared at TPUSA's AmericaFest to speak about the terror attacks.
In a Truth Social post, the president said the U.S. has begun air strikes against ISIS:
Trump wrote on Christmas:
"Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries! I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was. The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues."
His note to friend and foe alike was signed:
DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also reshared the president's post on the attack. Here he was in the fall., meeting with national security leaders from Nigeria, in hopes of "end[ing] the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists" with the government's help:
This is a developing story. As always, contribute updates in the comments.